Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sperm whales have names

It has long been known that whales can sing complicated and extemporaneous songs. Apparently, that’s not all they can do. According to a new study by Luke Rendell and his team from the University of St. Andrews and from Dalhousie University, it appears that sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) begin each speech with an identifier. To put it another way, whales may have names.

Sperm whales routinely makeshort sequences of clicks called ‘codas’. Back in 2008, Rendell and his colleagues showed that whales sing overlapping and/or matching codas to each other. This time, the researchers focused on a specific five click long coda known as 5R. Closer acoustical comparison showed that each whale had a unique 5R signature composition. Not only that, but the 5R coda tended to occur at the beginning of longer strings of clicks or calls.

Although Rendell stresses that this work is in the preliminary stages, it’s hard not to conclude that the whales are giving their ‘call signs’ before each communication. Sperm Whale picture by cianc.

Stochastic Scientist? What's up with that?

Why the Stochastic Scientist? As I'm sure you all know, 'stochastic' is another word for 'random', which is what I intend for the focus of this blog. Although my formal training is as a molecular biologist, there are many other fields of science that are also fascinating and beautiful. It's my intention to blog about which ever scientific discovery or invention catches my, and hopefully your, fancy.

I also hope to inspire people to learn more about science. By choosing among a huge variety of scientific endeavors, I'll undoubtably hit upon something that will pique my readers' interest.

I guess I could have called my blog 'The Joy of Science', but that wouldn't have been quite so random.